December 22, 2010

It still tickles me how parades are ordinary occurrences here. I don't think permits are necessary and sometimes the parades are tiny, just a bunch of people, children wearing what, to me, appear to be random costumes. It's often hard to tell exactly what is being celebrated. However, it is now the Christmas season so I know all these parades are to commemorate this event--what a cognitive relief! When I first moved here the drill was: hear parade music; run to grab the camera; race up the stairs to the rooftop to get pictures before the parade passed me by. Then the novelty wore off as parades became not so special events. But the itch to run to see the parade is hard to ignore and I'm back at it. The picture above is of one of those tiny parades, which happened by yesterday, the kind that seems to spring out of nowhere and then disappear the same way. One of the things I love about them is how traffic will come to a stand still, with buses and taxis silently crawling behind the parade until it turns a corner.This one, which just went by, was a long parade however, long enough that traffic became restless and there was some honking. Nothing too aggressive but given that there is no traffic police to manage the flow, some parade participants had to act the part, calming the drivers and hurrying the small ones along.This ragtag band was marching around the other day, perhaps hoping to create a parade but sadly, there were no takers on that day.